


Old Habits

by YoYossarian



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 21:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16026014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoYossarian/pseuds/YoYossarian
Summary: The gentle tap on his hotel room door follows a familiar pattern. It’s 10 PM the night before their short dance and he’s been in bed for almost a half hour now, vaguely watching TV on mute, and waiting.





	Old Habits

**Author's Note:**

> Self-edited, my mistakes are my own. This piece was not specifically written to be a part of the Outside Looking In universe.

The gentle tap on his hotel room door follows a familiar pattern. It’s 10 PM the night before their short dance and he’s been in bed for almost a half hour now, vaguely watching TV on mute, and waiting. He flips off the TV, but doesn’t go to the door; she’s had a key to every one of his hotel rooms for over ten years now.

There’s an electronic click and he hears the door open and then quickly, quietly shut. It used to be more complicated, back when they were young and always had roommates. At some point, however, though no one ever mentioned it, he started being assigned a single room. Maybe it was a perk of being a veteran on a team with an odd number of male skaters, but the more likely explanation is that they weren’t fooling anyone anymore.

“Hey,” he sits up and smiles up at her as she comes around the corner, analyzes her expression and posture as she slips off her shoes, and tries to deduce what she needs from him tonight.

They’ve come together like this, supported each other like this countless times. It’s been years since they slept apart the night before a competition, though what actually happens on those nights in those hotel rooms varies wildly depending on how they’re feeling and what’s at stake. Some nights they curl up in sweatpants and watch Friends reruns until they fall asleep. Some nights they sit up and play cards until their eyelids get heavy. Some nights they fuck, desperate and needy, until they’re both drained. Some nights it’s slow and gentle and revitalizing. This partnership, this togetherness is such an integral part of their identity that the concept of being apart has become foreign and terrifying. Sex has come and gone throughout their twenty years together, but this ritual has been a constant.

She smiles down at him as she crawls into his bed, a smile that reaches her eyes. She lies down next to him, presses her body against his, and buries her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling as he wraps an arm around her. She’s wearing leggings and a loose t-shirt. Her dark hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, which he frees, so he can massage her scalp. Minutes pass and they don’t speak, but lie together, fully clothed on top of the covers in a hotel bed halfway around the world.

When their breathing is steady and in sync, he stops playing with her hair and lets his hand rest on her waist. They’ve both dated other people in the past and both attempted to explain this aspect of their partnership to those girlfriends and boyfriends; it’s an awkward, painful conversation that invites jealousy and accusations of infidelity despite the fact that neither of them have ever actually cheated. When they’ve committed to others, they’ve always put the sexual aspect of their relationship on hold. Emotional cheating is what Cassandra once called it during an argument, though he’d done his best to be honest with her from day one. That relationship, though he’d invested over a year in it, hadn’t lasted the inevitable, “me or her” ultimatum. It was the easiest question he’d ever answered.

“Big day tomorrow,” she break the silence, gently drumming her fingers on his chest. “Are you nervous?”

—

She said once during a magazine interview that they’d never crossed the line, never pursued each other romantically, and it wasn’t a lie, still isn’t a lie. Whatever this is, whatever this has always been, it isn’t romance (not that either of them have ever been able to come up with an adequate descriptor).

And sure, something shifted after their move to Montreal, something that they both feel, but neither of them have initiated a conversation about. It’s a delicate dance, honesty and avoidance, because their career comes first, no matter what, Pyeongchang comes first. And so when they’re ironing out pre-competition prep plans and wearing sleep monitors and working on their communication in therapy they don’t lie. To lie to the team of experts around them, the team of professionals supporting them, would be to shoot themselves in the foot and so this time around they tell the truth.

When the reports show that Tessa falls asleep faster and stays asleep longer on certain nights and the team dives in, digging for habits they can capitalize on and incorporate into the plan, she doesn’t lie.

(Did she drink a certain type of tea or meditate or take a bath before bed? No, those are just the nights she doesn’t sleep alone.)

A faint blush rises in Tessa’s cheeks, but no one on the B2ten team so much as bats an eyelash (though Tessa is secretly grateful that Marie-France and Patch aren’t in the room); they make note of this new information, recommend incorporating this practice into their pre-competition routine, nod their scientific approval when Tessa confirms that it’s been a part of their routine for a decade, and move on.

When they’ve had a particularly difficult week of practice and Patch comments that Scott seems to be handling it well, doesn’t seem to be letting the frustration eat away at him, Scott agrees that he’s been doing a better job of redirecting his energy. He doesn’t elaborate because that would mean vocalizing to his coach that he’s begun funneling the energy he used to waste fuming into lunch breaks spent with his face buried between Tessa’s thighs. (She loves when he goes down on her and he loves the sounds she makes when she comes; it’s a win win.) Patch, to his credit, encourages him to keep it up, but insightfully declines (thank god) to ask after the details.

And so the 2016-2017 season begins to fly by, gold after gold, piece after piece clicking into place.

—

It’s JF, of course, who finally makes them talk about it, though even he doesn’t force them to think beyond the Olympics (at least not yet). What he wants to talk about is the past, the habits, good and bad, they formed together, the ways they molded each other into the adults they’ve become. It was one thing to vaguely acknowledge the benefits of their arrangement as it relates to sleep patterns, but it’s an entirely different experience to delve into the details as JF officially becomes the first therapist with whom they’re fully honest.

“‘Let’s discuss your sleeping arrangement. How old were you when it happened for the first time?”

Tessa meets JF’s gaze and takes the lead.

“When we were kids, maybe nine or ten, we used to pass out together in the back of my mom’s van on the drive to Kitchner at 4:30 in the morning. It was easier to fall asleep if we leaned up against each other. Scott bought me a giant Marvin the Martian body pillow; we’d prop it up between us and sleep the whole way there.”

“That sounds a lot more comfortable than leaning against a cold window,” JF says with a smile. “And what about as you got older? How did things evolve?”

There’s a pause while Tessa and Scott make eye contact. After a moment, he nods and answers.

“It started in hotel rooms. Chiddy was a very…forgiving roommate.”


End file.
